Or at least that's what people are being told by Crutchfield.

Several Orbitcast readers have received confirmation that their pre-ordered Sirius Stilettos are on their way. One keen reader points out that the Stiletto Boombox though is still back-ordered.

Sirius' own website is expecting orders that are placed now to arrive the week of October 9th.

I myself am holding off on getting one until I get a better sense of what the live Sirius signal reception will be like. Plus at $350, it's still a bit too rich for my blood.

Recently the topic of Sirius' "Car Lot Subscribers" seems to have been picking up steam with terrestrial radio. The source of this frenzy is based on comments by Sirius CFO David Frear at the Merrill Lynch Media & Entertainment Conference.

At the conference, Frear was asked exactly how many subscribers are "cars just sitting on the lot" - of which Frear responded that in Q4 2005 the number was about 10% of subscribers, and this past quarter it was in the 8% range.

Listen to the Audio here.

Now, the terrestrial radio has taken this and ran with it. David Rehr's keynote at the NAB Radio Show, specifically highlighted "those 500,000 subscribers in empty car lots." Inside Radio (which sometimes seems like a good resource, while at other times is just a megaphone for the NAB) was actually the first publication I could find that threw out the solid 500,000 number after Frear's speech. Even Jacob's Media has gone so far as to compare Sirius' "half million unsold vehicles on car dealer lots" to Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. (wha?! Apples... meet Oranges.) UPDATE: Check out this PDF by Inside Radio (pictured) to see how this propaganda is being pushed (page 26 - or you can read the full thing and see a photo of Mancow in a monkey suit)

But let's break this down for a minute. Is the number really 500k? In 2Q 2006, Sirius reported something like 4,678,000 subscribers. At 8% that's around 374,000 "car lot" subscribers. And as Frear pointed out, the average days these vehicles spend on the lots is around 90 days (culmatively... Bimmer's have a tendency to fly off the lots whereas Fords and Chryslers stick around longer).

Now, just for the record, I'm not criticizing Siruis' policy for reporting unsold cars as subscribers - I'm actually disputing the NAB's propaganda of a "half million subscribers" that they seem to be enjoying. The practive is almost understandable from an accounting standpoint since Sirius gets paid at the time of production. The only thing it does is make it difficult to compare Sirius net subscribers with XM's net subscribers - which is a comparison that only Wall Street does (and those who are running the numbers should be factoring in that percentage anyway). Other than that, why does it matter? As if Arbitron reports exact numbers.

OK, so the burning question, what about the year's to come? Frear said that the percentage of car lot subscribers is shrinking. That makes sense when you consider that Sirius' subscriber count continues to grow. According to Bank of America estimates: in 2007 the percentage will drop to 6%, with car lot subs equaling 542,000. By 2010? Maintaining the 6% rate, you're looking at a total of 964,000 car lots subscribers.

[more on TheStreet] 

There were signs that this would happen a few months back, but as many Sirius listeners know from the channel update a couple days ago - PRI (Public Radio International - ch 136) is no longer available on Sirius.

With no official announcement, the only "reason" we have to go by is what is stated on PRI's website:

Note: As of September 26, PRI programs will no longer be available on Sirius Satellite Radio. If you have questions and/or would like to provide feedback to Sirius, go to the contact page of the Sirius website.

I listened to PRI everyonce in a while, but judging from the numerous complaints in my inbox, there's a few more out there who are upset over this.

Starting tomorrow at 6am ET, SIRIUS Satellite Radio is devoting Prime Country (ch 61) to the music of George Strait.

You'll hear all George Strait music all the time, including his upcoming new album, It Just Comes Natural, which is being released this Tuesday, October 3rd.

"Strait Up" will broadcast music from Strait's entire career, along with excerpts from a recent interview, for five-days straight through midnight Tuesday night.

California First Lady Maria Shriver will host special coverage of today's 2006 California Governor and First’s Lady’s Conference on Women for SIRIUS Satellite Radio, set to be broadcast multiple times throughout the weekend of October 13-15, 2006 on SIRIUS Stars (ch 102).

Selling out in a record 72 hours, the California Governor and First Lady’s Conference on Women hosted over 13,000 women to experience the theme "Connect Today, Seize Tomorrow."

California First Lady Maria Shriver will conduct exclusive interviews with featured guests and speakers. SIRIUS will also broadcast portions of select speeches from the main stage including Shriver, Martha Stewart, Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson, Suze Orman, Anna Quindlen, Maureen Dowd, Tyra Banks, Tim Russert, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the first ever address to a women’s conference by his Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Martha Stewart’s speech was broadcast live today on Martha Stewart Living Radio (ch 112). Judith Regan also will tape a special edition of her SIRIUS show set to be broadcast at a later date on SIRIUS Stars (ch 102).

Well, this is the day we've been waiting for. SIRIUS Satellite Radio has officially announced the Stiletto 100 featuring WiFi, Yahoo! Music Jukebox, the ability to save music, and more notably this is Sriius' first live portable radio.

The Stiletto is pretty much the worst kept secret in satellite radio, and if you're an avid reader you already know the features of this device and know that we've beaten this thing to death over the recent months.

One thing to highlight is the "official" inclusion of Yahoo! Music Jukebox with the Stiletto (suprise surprise). Any bookmarked song on the Stiletto 100 is moved to a favorites list, which is accessed when connected to PC. Yahoo! Music Jukebox then lets you purchase songs, full albums, or explore other artist offerings through the software or "other compatible online music download or subscription services."

Oh, and the MSRP is set at $349.99.

Read the full press release after the jump... 

The Sirius Stiletto is now listed in the SIRIUS online store for $379. Clicking the "Buy Now" button only results in a refresh to the store's homepage.

Sirius Direct also has the Stiletto listed for $349 which also indicated that shipping will begin on October 4th.

I'm also getting reports that SIRIUS' Behind the Mic newsletter has the same October 4th date listed, though the version that I received doesn't have this anywhere.

Behind the Mic did link to some great Stiletto information pages including a demo video (which we've seen before) and a full Stiletto mini-site.

Sirius Backstage has a good discussion thread on this.

Thanks to Tim, Steven and Nelson! 

Jane Pratt, founder and former editor-in-chief of both Sassy and Jane magazines, will host "Jane Radio," a live, weekly three hour show on SIRIUS Stars (ch 102).

Jane's show will feature several segments: from the "Jane rant" of each week to short segments produced "on the street," and "Jane Needs Help" (where listeners help Jane with her problems) and "Songs We Love."

"Just as 'Jane' magazine always maintained a 15% male readership, I am sure 'Jane Radio' will inevitably get some men to listen in and learn," said Jane Pratt.
 

SIRIUS Internet Radio (or SIR) has officially launched today, and the pricing learned unofficially has turned out to be true. $12.95/month gets you an online-only account for non-subscribers. If you are a SIRIUS subscriber, you get two options:

1. An additional SIRIUS Internet Radio subscription for $6.99 a month. This includes a separate username/password plus the high-bandwidth streaming.
2. Upgrade your current free SIR account to high-bandwidth (CD-quality) streaming for $2.99/month. This uses your current username/password.

So what do you get? Improved sound quality plus and 75+ music & talk channels. View the sign-up page here.

Thanks Eric, Branford and Ryan! 

A recent article in AdAge highlights the fact that Howard Stern's ad rates have dropped to $5,000 - $6,000 per spot - with live reads maxing out at $10,000. That's about 1/2 of what Sirius was originally asking, and back in his terrestrial days Stern was commanding a live-read upwards of around $30,000.

But that's not really the interesting part of the article, because well it's not really much of a surprise. The interesting part is the listener number data coming from Sirius.

While XM does offer some audience data from a custom Arbitron report, Scott Greenstein, president-entertainment and sports at Sirius, said Sirius has hired a third-party research company to get audience data on "certain things our advertisers would need." The third-party data, culled from the unnamed research company, shows that 58% of subscribers listen to Howard Stern during the week.

That means there's about 5 million Stern listeners according to this data. Take 4.7 million Sirius subscribers multiplied by an estimated 2 listeners per subscription, equals 9.4 million total Sirius listeners. Multiplied by 58% and you've got Stern's audience of about 5 million people.

"Given the state of terrestrial, there are a lot of shows and hosts that would like to have that [many listeners]," Mr. Greenstein said.

[AdAge]